WATERBABY HOMEPAGE

"The maker of a sentence launches into the infinite and builds a road into chaos and old night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words flow somewherelse unread and free...30, number that make me feel grown and changed. The waterbaby shell has opened.

I have always had a biased view on global warming and all the mumbo jumbo brought up by politicians and economists alike in the past few years. Statistics at best is unreliable unless the right equipment and stations are used and if you are the most unbiased being on the planet. So Global warming, as one of my favorite oceanography lecturer at Uni used to say ,"... is just a phase that will turn into another ice age". Maybe extreme this statement has always been in the back of my mind over the past few years. So did the study of Don J. Easterbrook show as well: read this and tell me what you think. 

http://www.exiern.com

I am addicted to that cartoon, sarcastic tone, awesome plot, piss-taking, drawing in itself is sketchy but it has the undefinable characteristic of making me laugh out loud and that is very very rare those days.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

--- Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

Fear...

I have had  a very comfortable screw with fear over the past years, one that has lead me to be utterly jittery and out of control in testing environments..one that has blocked many ideas into getting done.  The fear of failure and being judged by others.. the fear of getting what I REALLY wanted in life.

I have two exams in june-july. One to pursue my sailing career and the other for work and I can see the old pattern breaking through the veil once more.

How do you counteract your fears? walk through that door and do it...shit your pants , breathe and what will be will be. Give it your best I guess then you can only move forward, spiral up.

Another 2 weeks of ulcers and a nagging feeling of worthlessness on my side and it will be over until the next jump.

Days linger into a go to work, get home, try to find something insightful to do on the boat, get home, cook, watch something on TV or read and go to bed. A gentle routine that will most likely take over our lives for the next 3 months. I desperately try in the occasional trip down to my gym and a rollerblade ride by the riverside.
Unbeleivable how simple actions can fill the day so fast.

Had also a laugh today with this

“If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet smelling herbs – that is your success. All nature is your congratulations”

– Henry David Thoreau -

Danemark in the spring 2008

I have been trying to define the term friendship and it became more complicated then expected.  Espen came up with someone you enjoy spending time with, I find it a little restrictive and according to Aristotle and myself it is impossible to apply one definition. Complexity is the matter of friendship, not one of them is the same, special rules apply and circumstances. Then time, time is money nowadays, time is also an invention, time is what we lack, time is something I have issues splitting into useful slots, it shifts and disappears . So to have great relationships you should spend the time working on them, but then why not use that time for yourself instead.....Just been a little thoughtful lately, mirroring the weather and the battle within myself to change within...

And for those of you in the mood this week-end simply  try this test on friendship to assess your ideas about friendship and compares them with those of the great philosophers of friendship.

Espen's parents will be visiting this week-end, then weare heading to Mainz to visit my cousins after that I hope we can simply stay home before I head to the UK for my sailing course mid june for a week, the week-end after that it's my 30th B'day and I am flying to Norway , my parents should visit  beginning of july....and the week after that it's the loveparade....Good god or krishna or allah when will it stop:) Seems like after planning for week-ends off, without driving involved or seeing anyone, life keep throwing surpises/events at us. So if nay of you out there want a place to visit go ahead join in the craze.

I dream of a day off..OOOOH wait I am getting a day off!!!!! wednesday 30th April, Queen's day in Holland. Bless... I think I will lay in a hammock on deck with my pile of books and go shopping, YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I wasn't home all week-end and  after an evening of trying out outfit for an official party on friday, leaving the house in a state of utter chaos, I must re-organise the clutter into manageable chunks so our cleaner can CLEAN floors, which are unvisible to the human eye ATM. Add the paperwork mess and the food leftovers and the piled up clean Laundry.....I also want to finish my script today as I am meeting the nerve people on wednesday and would like my idea to be as cristal clear as possible in my head.... Take the equation and multiply by 3 or 4 hours available.  Guess I will simply head back to the internet now:)

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau

I have satiated myself on dozens websites today. Nothing to do at work except tranlating the official website of the company from Dutch to English, the office is empty of sound, a sleepless space where strive a gentle hum of keyboard notes, taptitaptitaptitapti.... I am in the process of defining what the 3 main composant of this mental path should be. The first is obvious, sailing, yachts, tying knots, welding, repairing steel, grinding, knowing where the wind comes from, studying for my RYA exam. The second involves cameras, programming, script writing, filming, editing, music and the media. For the rest I oscillate bravely between utter abandonment to entertainment's joyful depravity or raising my awareness level to it's highest potential. When sitting under the roof of this 13th century farmhouse, awareness wins but as soon as the darkness of my own house surrounders my deprived soul, I fall for the entertainment. I have won one battle though. I have been  for the past 5 weeks on a no wheat, potato, corn, sugar, dairy or white processed food diet. I can say I feel a lot healthier then before. I can also say refusing birthday cakes and explaining to people why has been the hardest part on my part and I get comments on you're soooo skinny why would you be on a diet anyway. My aim is to keep at it for another 3 months and swap it for a partial raw diet. 80% raw, 20% cooked, kinda like the japanese diet. I have orderd 3 cookbooks : Grain-Free Gourmet: Delicious Recipes for Healthy Living, Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods and I can't wait as most of my old favorite recipes include wheat, sugar,butter or cream.  I have failed at going to the gym or exercising 2 to 3 times a week. Changing towards an Athlete mindset is what I am thriving for ATM and it applies to all goals I will set for myself. I must make sure what those goals are truly what  I must focus on first. Simple enough...guess I am back making lists, should kill the last 15 minutes before I head home:)

‘A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.’ Robert A. Heinlein

Tornadoes, tsunamis of goals are spreading in my office, looking me in the face everyday. Staring with their black little eyes and asking me to choose. Choice is what our lifes are reduced too, conscious choices. Yet why reduced? A life embodied by Choices, conscious and soulful,  is well worth living or dying for, at least worth experiencing. I think Deadlines should do it for me. I have one for a  documentary script in 2 weeks and one for the boat in 3 weeks. If I don't follow through well...I will have sabotaged my first step reaching that goal.

Stevepavlina blog is a great resource where I head to when feeling like giving up. Who wouldn't recognise oneself in that quote:

'' how do you respond to this ornery voice that won't shut up? What do you do when confronted by that gut feeling that something just isn't right in your life? What's your favorite way to silence it? Maybe drown it out by watching TV, listening to the radio, working long hours at an unfulfilling job, or consuming alcohol and caffeine and sugar.

But whenever you do this, you lower your level of consciousness. You sink closer towards an instinctive animal and move away from becoming a fully conscious human being. You react to life instead of proactively going after your goals. You fall into a state of learned helplessness, where you begin to believe that your goals are no longer possible or practical for you. You become more and more like a mouse, even trying to convince yourself that life as a mouse might not be so bad after all, since everyone around you seems to be OK with it. You surround yourself with your fellow mice, and on the rare occasions that you encounter a fully conscious human being, it scares the hell out of you to remember how much of your own courage has been lost. '

No matter how difficult it may seem, make the choice to live consciously. Do not succumb to that half-conscious realm of fear-based thinking, filling your life with distractions to avoid facing what you feel in those silent spaces between your thoughts. Either exercise your human endowment of courage and progressively build the strength to face your deepest, darkest fears to live as the powerful being you truly are, or admit that your fears are too much for you, and embrace life as a mouse. But make this choice consciously and with full awareness of its consequences. If you are going to allow fear to win the battle for your life, then proclaim it the victor and forfeit the match. If you simply avoid living consciously and courageously, then that is equivalent to giving up on life itself, where your continued existence becomes little more than a waiting period before physical death - the nothing as opposed to the daring adventure.

Don't die without embracing the daring adventure your life is meant to be. You may go broke. You may experience failure and rejection repeatedly. You may endure multiple dysfunctional relationships. But these are all milestones along the path of a life lived courageously. They are your private victories, carving a deeper space within you to be filled with an abundance of joy, happiness, and fulfillment. So go ahead and feel the fear - then summon the courage to follow your dreams anyway. That is strength undefeatable.''

So my little week of calmness was not so calm after all. I ended up turning upside down my life, analysing and mingling with people instead of sitting quietly at home with 2 or 3 of those black eyed goals and going through my list one step at a time. Reduced to inaction but induced to socialise.  I haven't learn to set limits as for saying no. Learning that having boundaries doesn’t mean people won’t love you and most will respect you more if you respect your own needs.  You can tell a lot about people if d they respect your needs. The relationship will grow if everybody is asking and negotiating what they need. JOY!!!!

As for duty, I need to learn to set boundaries and expectations up front because I do not like the mess of dealing with renegotiating them later. Sometimes I know full well that the other party is creating an alternate reality, but as long as I’ve spoken my truth I have a clean conscience. There is no discerning duty without a clean conscience. Speaking my truth is less then easy but I will try to do so in the coming weeks.